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TripityDooDaDay
Prick


Registered: 09/14/06
Posts: 2,046
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Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy
#13613249 - 12/10/10 03:14 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131970302
A Colorado sheriff's online database mistakenly revealed the identities of confidential drug informants and listed phone numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers of suspects, victims and others interviewed during criminal investigations, authorities said.
The breach potentially affects some 200,000 people, and Mesa County sheriff's deputies have been sifting through the database to determine who, if anyone, is in jeopardy.
"That in itself is probably the biggest concern we have, because we're talking about people's personal safety," Sheriff Stan Hilkey said.
The FBI and Google Inc. are trying to determine who accessed the database, the sheriff said. Their concern: That someone may have copied it and could post it, WikiLeaks-style, on the Internet.
"The truth is, once it's been out there and on the Internet and copied, you're never going to regain total control," Hilkey said.
Thousands of pages of confidential information were vulnerable from April until Nov. 24, when someone notified authorities after finding their name on the Internet. Officials said the database was accessed from within the United States, as well as outside the country, before it was removed from the server.
The information was so stunning that Jay Seaton, publisher of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, thought it was obtained illegally.
A source provided the western Colorado newspaper with a computer disk shortly after Thanksgiving. The paper first published details of the leak — but not its contents.
"We got that disk returned to the proper authorities," he said. "As a general rule, I don't mind taking some risks. But in something like this, where you can actually get people killed, I'm out."
The disk's contents were legally gleaned from a sheriff's department database. In April, a Mesa County information technology employee moved the database into what the employee believed was a secure server, county spokeswoman Jessica Peterson said.
The information sat there as a large text file. It was first accessed by an outside computer on Oct. 30. Other computers accessed the information over the next 25 days.
Hilkey declined to provide other details. But he surmised that a Google Web crawler that can be programed to troll the Internet for specific sets of information, such as nine-digit numbers that can be Social Security numbers, found the server.
"Somebody who sets up that kind of Web crawler to search for that kind of information probably doesn't have good intentions," the sheriff said.
The employee who transferred the files no longer works for the county. Peterson declined to say whether the file transfer led to the employee's departure. A Google spokesperson didn't immediately return calls for comment.
Deputies have used the database since 1989 to collect and share intelligence gathered during the course of police work. It contains 200,000 names — Mesa County's population is about 150,000 — and includes investigative files from a local drug task force.
The information included data about Mesa County employees, information from the nearby Fruita and Palisade police departments — and possibly information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Grand Junction police.
DEA spokesman Mike Turner and Grand Junction police spokeswoman Kate Porras insisted their agencies' information wasn't compromised because they use their own computer systems. But both agencies work with the Mesa County sheriff's drug task force, whose files were in the database.
FBI spokesman Dave Joly confirmed agents in Denver were assisting in the investigation. He declined to elaborate.
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downlowfunk
Retired Festival Veteran



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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: TripityDooDaDay]
#13613283 - 12/10/10 03:20 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Anyone have the torrent to this database? I know some people in CO that would be interested. Like half of my highschoool graduating class moved there for Weed.
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the spiral
Neuroscientist




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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: downlowfunk]
#13613353 - 12/10/10 03:32 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Wow. One expects a certain level of incompetence from the police, but having all their informants' names posted online for all to see - that's beyond the call of duty! I foresee a lot of lawsuits stemming from this; I know if I was giving the cops information and my life was put in jeopardy because of this idiocy, I would certainly seek some sort of compensation.
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  "A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." - Carl Sagan
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WordsWorth
More trees then Christmas


Registered: 10/31/07
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: downlowfunk]
#13613408 - 12/10/10 03:42 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Good news.. To bad its not nation wide. Informants are a waste of life. Serves them right for placing their security in the hands of the fuzz.
-------------------- Freak the establishment
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the spiral
Neuroscientist




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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: WordsWorth]
#13613442 - 12/10/10 03:47 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
WordsWorth said: Good news.. To bad its not nation wide. Informants are a waste of life. Serves them right for placing their security in the hands of the fuzz.
Drug informants are certainly not high on my list of people to admire. If you get busted for possession or whatever, that's on you; trying to save your own ass by fucking over whoever you bought your weed (for example) from is something I really can't see as morally justifiable. Especially considering how immoral our drug laws are, dragging other people down with you when you get caught up in the tragedy of the "War on Drugs" is not cool at all. I wouldn't go so far as to call them "wastes of life" but I can't say I approve of at least some of them. Then again if it weren't for informants we might have had a bomb blown up in portland at the tree lighting, for example.
Edited by the spiral (12/10/10 04:12 PM)
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WordsWorth
More trees then Christmas


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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: the spiral]
#13613518 - 12/10/10 04:05 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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PREACH!!
-------------------- Freak the establishment
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lucydforme
Lord Of The Socks




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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: WordsWorth]
#13613727 - 12/10/10 04:51 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Ca-ching Jackpot, Next article of this will read "200,000 informants dead" :X
-------------------- Funny story, this whole "world" that we know everything about, well, that's all good and well, but we know nothing about the rest of that vast everything we call the universe.
Everything I say is heresay. All fiction for a fictional character. Rule yourself, let no one else rule you. Down with government, and up with responsibility.
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fapjack
Title



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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: the spiral]
#13613827 - 12/10/10 05:10 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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That bomb failed because it wasn't a bomb. The entrapped some dumb teenager into doing that. FBI encourages people to do that shit, then arrests them.
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nooneman


Registered: 04/24/09
Posts: 14,612
Loc: Utah
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: TripityDooDaDay]
#13613930 - 12/10/10 05:27 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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HOLY FUCKING CHRIST 200,000 PEOPLE ARE INFORMANTS IN COLORADO?!?
      Do you guys realize that the population of colorado is around 5 million, which means that 4% of people living in colorado ARE INFORMANTS?
That's 1 in 25. Meaning, in Colorado if you deal with 25 people, one of them is likely to be an informant. Fucking christ, what the hell is wrong with the world.
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lucydforme
Lord Of The Socks




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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: nooneman]
#13614035 - 12/10/10 05:49 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Fairly large amount of things wrong with the world, economics, government policies, drug policies, foreign policies, general world stuff.
-------------------- Funny story, this whole "world" that we know everything about, well, that's all good and well, but we know nothing about the rest of that vast everything we call the universe.
Everything I say is heresay. All fiction for a fictional character. Rule yourself, let no one else rule you. Down with government, and up with responsibility.
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floatingwater
இலைலைலைஇ

Registered: 01/06/09
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: nooneman]
#13614168 - 12/10/10 06:29 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
nooneman said: HOLY FUCKING CHRIST 200,000 PEOPLE ARE INFORMANTS IN COLORADO?!?
      Do you guys realize that the population of colorado is around 5 million, which means that 4% of people living in colorado ARE INFORMANTS?
That's 1 in 25. Meaning, in Colorado if you deal with 25 people, one of them is likely to be an informant. Fucking christ, what the hell is wrong with the world.

Uhhh.. You have to read more closely before you throw some awesome stats in there like 4% and 1 in 25 are informants in colorado. All the article says is that the database which contains names of informants has 200,000 names in it. It does not say that all 200,000 names in the database are informants. Gotta be more careful dude.
The media uses the same sort of glossing over the facts to freak the shit out of people. Don't be apart of that madness
I do have to say that it is kind of ironic that this news comes out at a time when politicians are trying to increase access to the medical marijuana patients database for law enforcement (see news article posted on shroomery a couple days ago). I hope the politicians who are debating that issue read stuff like this and can contemplate that maybe opening up the access just a little further to another large database may not be such a good idea.
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monkeyheaven



Registered: 07/09/07
Posts: 964
Loc: yonder
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: floatingwater]
#13616055 - 12/11/10 02:58 AM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Police have no respect for CI's and people often advocate violence against them within the underground.
The names of informants being made public so that their victims can pursue justice in their own way presents an interesting opportunity.
In a war, you really can't play both sides for long and expect longevity.
I don't know any (I hope), but I assume that most informants have spent time in jail, and will do so in the future. I imagine that those who don't inform would do better on the inside and outside.
It's amazing what you can find out just by obtaining discovery papers in Colorado pertaining to particular arrests, but to actually know who the narcs are is a step in the right direction.
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the spiral
Neuroscientist




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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: fapjack]
#13616616 - 12/11/10 09:38 AM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
fapjack said: That bomb failed because it wasn't a bomb. The entrapped some dumb teenager into doing that. FBI encourages people to do that shit, then arrests them.
Oh, I know it wasn't a real bomb. What I meant was that if it weren't for informants, the FBI might never have heard of the guy and he might have either built or found someone to build a real bomb for him. He seemed determined to hit that tree-lighting. Even if he hadn't built a big bomb, he might've purchased an arsenal and gone in guns blazing. Or he could have built some pipe bombs using easily available materials. There are lots of possibilities.
of course, he might have done none of these things, and I think the argument that - without the FBI getting involved - this guy's fantasies might have stayed fantasies is an argument with some merit. That sad, the fact that he parked a van that he thought was loaded with explosives by the tree lighting and then dialed the number he thought would make it explode says to me that he was quite determined to massacre innocent people, and would have found a way to do it if the FBI hadn't gotten involved.
This does straddle the line of what's entrapment and what's not, for sure, which has got to be why they waited for him to dial the phone number to blow up the "bomb" before they arrested him.
Even if it is entrapment to a point, anyone who would be willing to park a bomb-laden van by an innocent holiday celebration packed with women and kids, and then attempt to blow it up, is someone I'm glad is behind bars. For that reason, I feel differently about people who inform on violent would-be terrorists than I do about people who inform on drug "crimes".
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  "A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." - Carl Sagan
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